Van Gogh

I had the joy of living another one of those events that give beauty to the life of a cinephile. My first encounter with Jacques Dutronc dates about half a century ago when I was listening to the shows on Radio Luxembourg behind the Iron Curtain. He was and remains perhaps the best French rocker. (Sorry, Johnny Hallyday!) Vincent Van Gogh is a huge artist, one of those who changed the course of art history. But I didn't know that Dutronc played Vincent in a biopic. But most of all, I didn't know Maurice Pialat. Many biographical films have been made about Van Gogh and will probably be made more. 'Van Gogh' made in 1991 by Pialat is a film different from all the others. I even wonder if it should be considered a biopic. Maybe it would be more appropriate to call it an anti-biopic. I have not seen other films by Maurice Pialat, and I intend to recover this unforgivable ignorance of mine as soon as I can find other films of his. In this movie, Pialat seems to desire to make cinema as Vincent created. The painter did not resume to replicate the world around him as the academics had done, nor to observe and reinterpret it through his eyes and vision as an artist as the Impressionists did. Instead, he started from reality and created something new. Likewise, Maurice Pialat starts from the ultra-well-known biography of the painter and the well-documented period of the last months of his life to create on screen his own vision of the man and of the artist Van Gogh and of the people and the world around him.

The trivially known details are missing. There is no cut ear or grotesque bandage around the head. There is no insistence on the mystery of the fatal shooting. But the essence is present. With his physique and especially his shaken psyche, the artist crushed by the lack of understanding and recognition of his art by the surrounding society took refuge in the last months of his life in Auvers-sur-Oise, being treated by Dr. Gachet (Gérard Séty) . The connection with his brother Theo (Bernard Le Coq), as reflected in their correspondence, goes through a stormy period, with ups and downs, as in his brother's life we witness the appearance of his wife and of his first and only child. Refused, perhaps feeling exiled from the bourgeois world, Vincent Van Gogh finds dialogue partners in women and in the simple people in the village whose portraits he paints. It is a period of feverish creation, as the end approaches the intensity of his artistic burning increases. The closer he gets to the end the more exuberant his works. Landscapes are on fire, nature is in convulsion, reflecting the storms inside. Pialat adds here another dimension, undocumented but human and credible. Van Gogh may be a depressed person, but not a passive one, he is very much alive. He lives intensely, eats, drinks, and has relationships with several women. Some are prostitutes, but not only, and at least one of the connections, the one with Dr. Gachet's young daughter (Alexandra London) could promise a chance to regain his balance. But it is too late, and perhaps the awareness of this impossible situation is what precipitates his end.

True to his conception of creating something new and not of just putting on screen the biography, Maurice Pialat made no effort to make Jacques Dutronc look like Van Gogh, nor did he force him to grow the iconic red beard. Dutronc's role is far from what other actors have imagined, from Kirk Douglas to Willem Dafoe. It is actually the refusal of conformist adaptation, the simplicity of human relationships, the thirst for life and creation, the power to love that bring him closer to what Vincent Van Gogh may have been in reality. Among the other actors (all very good) in the film I would mention Gérard Séty with a complex and ambiguous portrait of Dr. Gachet and Elsa Zylberstein in the role of a beautiful and sensual prostitute. The scenes of the parties in the brothels of Paris and of the meetings between Vincent and Theo, either in Dr. Gachet's house or on the banks of the Oise, are also very well directed. The frames seem to be taken from Manet's paintings. Women's costumes, dresses and hairstyles descend from Monet's paintings. The figures and bodies of the women come from Renoir. Visually Maurice Pialat quotes the masters of Impressionism and not Vincent. In fact, from his art, we see from time to time only glimpses when a painting appears in the frame. We see the art in character instead. Vincent's substance can found in his behavior. This unique film reconstructs the man Van Gogh from the essence of his art.

I have been an admirer of Vincent Van Gogh for many years and have ready many books about him, so I picked up a copy of this movie with high hopes. I also, like the first reviewer, liked the authentic period look of the movie. The actor that played Dr. Gachet, was very convincing and looked very much like him. Jocques Dutronc looks nothing like Vincent and I didn't really understand why the film makers wouldn't at least have him grow a beard? I have also never seen any photos of Theo with out either a mustache or a goatee but never a beard. Kinda like they got the characters mixed up. Theo was only 33 during the period this movie is supposed to portray. The actor that played him looked 50. I have never really figured out why film makers cannot do a more accurate movie of Vincent. Most of this movie depicts his "affair" with Margurite Gachet and there is little or no evidence to support any this nonsense. There is a lot of very strange and irrelevant dialog in this movie and many of the scenes don't seem to have much purpose or even flow together...Its a very odd film. Could have been much much better with little effort...

I was looking forward to see this movie, being in love with Van Gogh's paintings. I have traveled most of the places Van Gogh lived and painted at and was excited to see them in the directors interpretation. In short: I was really disappointed!

To be fair: This might be an average movie with some nice acting and a realistic story.

But how does this have to do with Van Gogh as an artist or his art?

Van Gogh's highly emotional, passionate few of the whole world he lived in, his subtle way to express this, the search for the beauty inside things, the flow inside all of his paintings - you will find nothing like this considered in the movie. Not even the scenes and settings he painted play any role at all, one or two of them appear by pure random it seems, just for storytelling. A character who suicides after having said "I don't want to be considered an unhappy man", a painter who is searching his whole life for a way to show a reality behind the surface, who lays the foundings for generations to come without living to see it - what a terrific movie this could have made.

Instead you watch something that comes along like a well done TV production. This movie would be nowhere bad at all - if it was not claiming to be about "Van Gogh". Like this, it just simply doesn't deserve the title! Instead of watching this movie, you can read the text at Wikipedia about "Van Gogh", it will give you more insight.

The strength of this film hinges on the plausibility of the account- if this is indeed an accurate portrayal of Van Gogh's last days then it at least has some innate value in that regard. Although the pain of V.G.'s suffering was excruciatingly heightened by the real-life pace, the film suffered overall from being too slow. I was left feeling depressed about Van Gogh and got the feeling that maybe some aspects of a person's life are better left undramatized. The character of "Van Gogh" ultimately comes across as a hopeless case--crazy, depressed, bitter, irresponsible and ill-tempered, hopelessly dependent on his brother and resentful to the point of suicide because of it. But is that the whole story? There must be more and this movie doesn't leave the viewer with the impression that any stones have been left unturned. Too much of this man's earlier life is unknown to us(assumed) and his actions and relationship with his brother, Theo have no real context for the viewer to truly sympathize or understand Van Gogh. And the relations he has with the love interests in the film are in many ways stilted and hard to believe. Van Gogh was a stormy, complex, singular type of human being whose story resists just this type of retelling. Nice try but I think this film missed.

This is Maurice Pialat's masterpiece, one of the best French films ever !

Unlike the title may induce, it's not a Van Gogh "classic" biography as Pialat only shows the last three months of the painter's life, from his arrival in Auvers sur Oise until his suicide.

The picture is constantly moving, intelligent, funny and masterfully photographed (some sequences along the river look like Renoirs's paintings). It's as much a movie about Pialat himself as about Van Gogh.

The scene between Vincent and his brother Theo , or the ones between the latter and her wife Jo are just extraordinary. And the way Pialat films Van Gogh's agony at the Auberge Ravoux in Auvers sur Oise is the mark of a genius.

Jacques Dutronc may not be a Vincent van Gogh lookalike, he's absolutely outstanding. And Bernard Le Coq as Theo makes his best performance so far.

Unmissable!!!!!!!!!!